I heard the sound of the snowblower over the weekend and knew my neighbor – with whom I share a driveway – was working on clearing a path for our cars to get out our garages. I wasn\u2019t really in the mood to go outside, but he does most of the work and the least I can do is help out.
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I bundled up, grabbed my shovel and bucket of salt and joined him on the front lines. He used the snowblower on our drive and the drives of the houses on either side of us – as well as the sidewalks. I shoveled the steps and walks of these four houses and put down salt as well.
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He wrapped up the snowblowing, thanked me, and headed into his house.
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I finished up what I was working on and though I was cold, I figured I had enough energy left to shovel the drive of the neighbors across the street. They also share a driveway and I figured it would be a 2 for 1 good deed.
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I headed over and got started and though the snow was light there was a lot of it. I got about \u2154 of the way done when that neighbor came outside.
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He asked, \u201cWhy are you shoveling my driveway?\u201d
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\u201cOh, just seemed like a nice thing to do – I had time,\u201d I replied,
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\u201cShe\u2019s not here, you know,\u201d he said – indicating his neighbor\u2019s house.
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\u201cOh,\u201d I replied, not sure why that mattered, \u201cI just figured I could help,\u201d
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\u201cAre you working?\u201d he asked and I was puzzled for a moment. Of course I was working, what did it look like I was doing? They I realized he was really asking, \u201cwas I expecting to be paid?\u201d
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\u201cUmmm\u2026 no,\u201d I said, \u201cI\u2019m Anthony, I live just across the street,\u201d
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With that he finally recognized me and remembered me – I had helped him with his computer not long after I had moved in and he learned that I was a computer guy.
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He then said he could handle the drive and I said not to worry, I could finish it up.
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Then he asked me if I had any experience in installing video cameras.
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(cue the red flag)
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Apparently, someone has been breaking into his house and garage and stealing things. He\u2019s reported it to the police, but they can\u2019t do anything without catching the thief in the act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Uh-huh.<\/em> I told him honestly that I didn\u2019t have any experience in working with video cameras. He persisted, saying that he had already bought the camera and just needed it set up. I told him again that I didn\u2019t have any experience in video and when he asked if I knew anyone I thought for a moment and told him, \u201cnot local,\u201d He finally said he needed to go to the store – as in, get out of my driveway so I can take my \u201chey kid, do you want some candy?\u201d van out. I worked on the sidewalks and managed to get about half the block cleared before he pulled out. \u00a0He stopped at the sidewalk, got out, and came back over to tell me that price wasn\u2019t an issue. That is, he would be willing to pay to install the cameras. \u00a0Great. \u00a0I told him again that I didn\u2019t have any experience in cameras. He got back in the van and drove off – clearly disappointed. I thought about this as I finished up the drive. 2.\tI cannot imagine anyone looking at his house, his van, and his truck in the street with a perpetual flat time and think \u201cI need to break in there and steal some cool shit\u201d Nope – red flag. 3. He had dropped off his laptop to have me re-install the operating system. \u00a0When I was done, you couldn\u2019t tell I\u2019d done anything. Zero personalizations. \u00a0I mean, you\u2019ve got to work at it to not change something<\/em>. Nothing – like he\u2019d never fired it up. I don’t know what the point of it was unless he was testing. \u00a0Red flag. Side note: he was also really into a Russian Anti-virus software – which has now turned out to (big surprise) be riddled with spyware. 4.\tI worked my butt off on that driveway and my back is still hurting today. And not a thank-you. Red flag. That\u2019s not why I did it, but who doesn\u2019t say thank you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, that\u2019s it for me and the neighbor across the street. I\u2019ll still help the nice lady that shares a drive with him, but I\u2019ve had my fill of him. We were both disappointed in the other and I think that\u2019s a good stopping point. I heard the sound of the snowblower over the weekend and knew my neighbor – with whom I share a driveway – was working on clearing a path for our cars to get out our garages. I wasn\u2019t really in the mood to go outside, but he does most of the work and the least […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2470"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2471,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2470\/revisions\/2471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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